Man oh man, a lot has happened since I last wrote. I will start in chronological order. Tuesday night, after cutting the grass here at the Hassenpflug house, we met up at Johst’s place and headed out for Diekoff, the bar in Tostedt. This was no ordinary trip to the bar though, it was hotter than snot that day and for some reason this brought out all the little green bugs. I swallowed at least 4 on the ride to the bar, and coughed back up 7 more. We had to put our heads down and focus on the front tire of the bike just so we wouldn’t get these damn little things in our eyes. And it was no better once we got to the bar, we had to have two coasters, one to put the glass on and another to cover the top so no bugs would fly in. but after the sun went down it got a lot better…either that or I was too drunk to care about them anymore.
Tuesday night was also the night that Volkdaddy came back to Tostedt. He is the Father of the Farmers and a legend around these parts. It was him, along with a few others that watched the movie Major League and decided to bring baseball to Dohren. He has been in Japan working for something like 8 years now and he is back in town for the month. We sat and talked to him for a while about the start of the Wild Farmers and how they came to be and the progression of the team from what it was then to what it has become. He told us that when they first decided to start this thing, they drove to Hamburg on their mopeds to get equipment (this doesn’t sound too bad until you consider that its about a 50 km drive on the Autobahn, cars whizzing by at 180 kmph…that’s about 115 mph). The first catchers’ gear was a motorcycle helmet and a back pack put on backwards…there were no shin guards. We sat and asked him about players when they were younger and how they have changed…and how most have stayed exactly the same. Since Tony didn’t have any cash on him, I picked up the tab for the 16 beers and the plate of food that I had. I was expecting 30 or 35 but nope, 23 euros is what it came out to be, the food was 5 euros so we got 16 beers for 18 euros…I didn’t want to argue with the man so I paid my tab and was merrily on my way.
Cut to Wednesday morning at 9 am. Since it was so hot that day we decided to have youth practice in the morning. This was after we had a 2 hour practice on Monday too. Usually the youth teams practice 4 hours a week, so it was weird that Antje set the practice for 9-12 on this day. And before the practice even started, she was already talking about practicing again on Friday. They don’t have a game for 6 weeks because of summer break and now she wants to have all these practices. But we practiced all 3 hours on Wednesday and came to a consensus that we would forego baseball on Friday and hit up the local pool instead.
Now cut to Thursday night. Me, Tony, Mitch, and Brocky were on the train at 9:10 pm on our way to meet Toby in Hamburg for a night on the town. The last train from Hamburg home is at 12:40 am or something like that and the first train in the morning runs at 5:15...I’ll let you guess which one we took. But when we first got there, we headed to a place called Saucalitos for half price night. Normally I’d say 5,50 euros for a cocktail is a bit steep, but not when they come in .5 liter glasses and are usually 11,00. And we’re talking about cocktails that are mixed at 50/50. It was well worth it and the scenery was the best I’ve seen so far. The chicks at this place were all hot, but they seemed to be going for the more slicked-back-hair-and-opened-collar-so-everyone-can-see-my-chest-hair Italian look than the I-wore-a-t-shirt-and-sneakers-to-the-trendy-club Americans of the bunch. But that was fine, we were having more fun watching the old man that looked like Colonel Sanders dance in the middle of everyone, flailing his body like a madman.
After this place closed we headed to the Keets and a bar called Thomas Reed. It was an Irish pub that wasn’t too crowded so we hopped in and grabbed a table. They also had karaoke going since it was Thursday and I couldn’t help myself. Me and Tony looked at their catalog and decided on “Eye of The Tiger” as our debut single off our new album, I only sing when the music is loud enough to drown out the sound of my voice. We’re still working on the cover art, but be on the lookout around Christmas, it’s going to make a real stocking stuffer. We still had a few hours to kill before our train left the station so we went to Hubert Street and did some window shopping. One girl told us she loved America, but I think if we would have said we were from North Korea she would have told us she loved that place too.
We made it on the train at promptly 5:15 on our way to Tostedt and in 5 hours we were to be up and at the field to meet the youth players to take them to the swimming pool. Needless to say, I didn’t make it in the water though it was a gorgeous day for it, no instead I laid under a tree and slept the entire time.
I was able to keep my eyes open long enough to do a bit of people watching towards the end and boy was it entertaining. There were 6-7 year old kids running around stark naked like it was completely normal. I saw a girl change into 3 different swim suits in the span of 10 minutes. But this was not the kicker of the afternoon, not by a long shot. Directly across from us was an older couple, I’ll say mid 70s sitting under their umbrella enjoying the day like the rest of us. Then the decided to get up and take a dip in the pool. It was bad enough that the man was wearing a Speedo, but hey that’s the European style, so whatever. And the woman was wearing a bikini, no big deal. But it was after the man got out and walked back over to his stuff that things got interesting. Apparently changing your swim suit after you get wet is a German way of life, I don’t know. But the man grabbed his robe and changed Speedos, right there in the middle of everyone. Me and Tony laughed at this for a while. But then the train wreck occurred, the woman came back to her chair and began untying the back of her top…no way, this isn’t happening right now…she’s not gonna do what I think she’s going to do, right? Surely she’ll put on her robe too…then she turned around, facing the rest of the pool side patrons with nothing on but her high waisted granny bikini bottoms and a smile. Tits just flapping in the wind and not a care in the world. I couldn’t believe it, Tony had to turn away, but it was like a train wreck, I just had to see what this old woman was going to do next. The best part of this whole thing was that the man was just staring off into the distance, not watching or telling her to put those thing away or anything. Luckily the woman put on a robe before she took off anything else. But like the other girl, she changed again in like another 15 minutes. I don’t know why you would even bring 3 suits to the pool in the first place.
Friday night we took it pretty easy, it was Henrik’s birthday so we went over to his place and had a beer before we took off for the Diekoff again. We had a couple more beers there and some food, then we came back and went to bed, we had to play a 1st man’s game on Saturday against the Sluggers of Berlin.
Saturday was an interesting day for me at the plate. In my first at bat I hit a liner up the middle for a base hit. And then I was intentionally walked in my next 2 at bats. I’ve never been intentionally walked before…except for last weekend, but I mean before coming to Germany…but I guess I was never leading the league in hitting before coming to Germany either. Each time I got walked it loaded the bases and Tony was able to drive in a run behind me, so really it didn’t do anything for them, it wasn’t a very good strategy to pitch around me like that. The 2nd game went exactly the same way, they walked me 2 more times, so now I lead the league in intentional walks and I doubled my walk total for the season. It really did piss me off though, I just wanted to hit, I had a great round of BP before the game and I was very confident going into the game…but they just took that bat out of my hands. I ended the day being 1-4 because I was trying to hit a homerun in the only times they let me hit and I popped out to the left fielder. But we won both games and everybody got to play so it was a good team effort and a good way to start off the 4th of July. But the real fun was yet to come.
It was Johst’s last week of freedom, he’s getting married on Friday, so this was his bachelor party. We dressed him up in a skiing suit and took him to the snow dome up the road. He’s not a big skier, he has two left feet when it comes to stuff like that is what he says. But watching him come down the slopes was entertaining and really quite impressive considering he’d never done it before. Once the ski part closed down, it was time for American Country/ whiskey night at the adjoining bar. Me and Tony were more than excited to hear some country music and drink some whiskey on the 4th. But once we got there, the DJ only had Chattahoochee by Alan Jackson…not that that is a bad song by any means, but it was the only real country song he had. The rest was…I really don’t know how to classify it, but it wasn’t Garth Brooks, which is what we kept asking the guy to play. But either he didn’t understand us, or he didn’t care that what he was playing was not country music and not a good representation of the genre. But nonetheless, we line danced and did the electric slide and there were actually a group of German’s there that could line dance with the best of them. They were clicking heels and docy doeing all night long. But the best part of the night was when the live band started to play, No Fucking Shit was their name and they had a midget as a lead singer/harmonica player. It was a sight to see but not much to listen to. There were some go-go dancers that came later and were dancing, and they laid an American flag on the ground and were dancing on it, which in my drunken state…they had 1 euro Cuervo shots all night…I had my fair share…I did not approve of, and I caused a bit of a ruckus.
Sunday the 2nd team had a game against the Wizards also of Berlin. They haven’t won a game all year but I was a bit worried that they might pull one out of us on that day because most everyone was still intoxicated from the night before. But Daniel threw well in the first game and we were able to put up more runs than they did in the allotted amount of innings. The 2nd game got out to a shaky start as they put up 8 in the top of the first. But we answered back with 5 in our half of the inning. It was a hot, muggy day and with the hangover that I know everyone had, it was miserable to say the least. Its hard to imagine that we won the game 22-14 in 7 innings. We had a chance to end it early with a runner on 3rd and no one out, but we were unable to get the run across and had to play all 7 innings.
I got fooled on the hidden ball trick in the 4th but was called safe by the umpire because he said that time had been called. I’ll explain what happened and you be the judge: I got a hit to right and ran to 1st, I turned to give my batting gloves to the 1st base coach and then walked off the bag to take my lead… I figured the pitcher had the ball and I was just a step off the bag. that’s when I noticed the 1st baseman lunge at me and tag me with his glove. I tried to get back but I wasn’t quick enough, so I’m hanging my head, thinking I just got caught by this shitty team on the hidden ball trick, when I hear SAFE! I looked up in disbelief, unsure what to make of this, it was at this point that I finally shifted my foot to touch the 1st base. I didn’t know if maybe the umpire had a bad angle and just thought I made it back or what, but then he said that Time had been called and the play was over. I don’t think this is right, I think I should have been out, but I don’t make up the rules, the umpire does. I later came around to score!
This was the first 4th of July without seeing fireworks, but in the words of one great Wild Farmer, “we sure created some.”
A-Ron
P.S. Congratulations to Matto and Melissa, I heard the wedding was a blast.
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A-Ron! Your fans are getting restless....we need a blog!!
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